


Contrasting Colors

by yeonyas



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28659426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeonyas/pseuds/yeonyas
Summary: "Ya do know just how many people there are in the world, right?"Well, there was him and Kohaku, his own parents, Kohaku's parents, and his soulmate, so that meant—"Seven?""Try seven-billion."Eight year old Tsukasa's dreams of finding his soulmate were crushed very quickly.
Relationships: Sakuma Ritsu/Suou Tsukasa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Contrasting Colors

**Author's Note:**

> out of all the pairings i wanted to write for, this one seemed the most practical? ritsu is left handed and tsukasa is right handed and i just thought it was cute haha..
> 
> sorry for the kinda lazy ending btw, i have no braincells at the moment..

Tsukasa was only eight years old when his soulmate first drew on him. 

His parents had taken him on a trip to Kyoto with them, to have a meeting with the Oukawa family. Tsukasa suspected that it had more meaning than for the adults to just, "catch up" with each other - whatever that meant - not that he really cared all that much about their long business talks anyway. 

It wasn't that often that he got to see his cousin Kohaku either, so he happily accepted the invitation to tag along. 

"I ran outta coloring paper," Kohaku placed a single sheet of blank paper on the table in the center of his room down. "There's only this one left." 

"You can have it, Kohakun!" Tsukasa pushed the paper towards Kohaku's side of the table, to which Kohaku gave him a nod and started to color on the paper with his markers. 

Despite his urge to make his cousin happy, it left Tsukasa himself with nothing to do.. Kohaku didn't seem to have that many toys in his room to play with either, which made Tsukasa wonder what he even did all day for fun. 

Rolling up the sleeve of his shirt, he decided to take a red marker - his favorite color - and started coloring little flowers on his left arm. 

It hadn't been long before he felt a scratching feeling on his right arm, though he had suspected it to just be an itch. 

Oh, but he was so, very, wrong.. 

Lifting up the sleeve of his right arm he saw a drawing of a little cat's face, done in black ink. 

It was cute — but where did it even come from? 

"Suou nii-han, what're ya doin', drawing on yerself like that...?" Kohaku had gotten up from his chair and walked over to Tsukasa's side. 

"Erm.. I'm not really sure what this is..." Tsukasa gestured toward the cat drawing. 

"Hmm? So yer tellin' me ya didn't draw that?" 

Tsukasa shook his head in response. 

"Well, mama says that when ya get a message on yer arm from someone else — it means that they're yer soulmate." 

"A soulmate...?" 

"Yea, like the special person yer supposed to end up with forever or somethin' like that." 

"Isn't this a good thing then?" Tsukasa smiled. Maybe he could even write a thing or two to his soulmate; perhaps draw some more flowers for them. He thought they would like that. 

He'd expected an immediate response from Kohaku, only to look over and see his cousin blowing air out of his cheeks. 

"Mmh.. I don't think ya should do anything with it." Kohaku shrugged and sat back down in his chair. 

"Huh? Why is that?" 

"Ya do know just how many people there are in the world, right?" 

Well, there was him and Kohaku, his own parents, Kohaku's parents, and his soulmate, so that meant— 

"... Seven?" 

"Try seven-billion." Kohaku stared at him with a blank face before continuing, "And yer soulmate is supposed to be one of 'em." 

"Yeah." 

"Ain't that crazy? Have ya even considered the fact that they might not even speak japanese?" 

"That's—" 

"All I'm sayin' is that there's a very small chance that you'll actually find 'em." 

Tsukasa shut his mouth, his face falling. The implications of what he was saying were crystal clear: there was no point getting attached to someone you’ll never meet. “O-oh.” He paused contemplatively. “So I can't…?” He trailed off. 

"I'd say to just wash it off if they ever try an' talk to ya." 

"Just... wash it off? Isn't that kind of ... mean?" 

"The sooner they find out yer not interested, the better." 

"I see.." Tsukasa's vision blurred, and he felt tears threatening to fall from his eyes. 

Clenching his fists, he walked over to the bathroom closest to Kohaku's room and started scrubbing the ink off his wrist, until it left nothing but a patch of red skin where the drawing had been. 

* * *

When Tsukasa woke up the next day back in Tokyo, he was greeted by what he deemed a silver mess on the whole of his right arm. He stared at it blearily, wondering ‘ _why is there an elephant my arm?_ ’ until the events of the previous day sank in. He shot up in bed as if a hot poker had been pressed against his back, and stared in horror at his skin. 

His soulmate seemed to be quite the artist, because there was nothing resembling characters or writing on his arm. Instead, it was like a zoo had been given birth to overnight; crudely drawn owls, jellyfish, sheep, and his soulmate’s trademark cats were decorated along the width of his arm. 

‘ _This is kind of cool_ , ’ was Tsukasa’s first thought. His second was, ‘ _Oh god, Mama and Papa are going to get mad at me_.’ 

The ink came off fairly easy, and thankfully - or not so thankfully - his soulmate didn’t attempt to communicate with him until he was back in class. It was easy to tell when his soulmate was writing; that small, telling itch was unmistakeable. Tsukasa was surprised he’d managed to sleep through his soulmate drawing on him, because the scratch was very hard to ignore. 

The message he received was simple. ‘ _Hi_ ,’ it read in the same, silver letters. 

Tsukasa stared at the writing. He’d bitterly avoided drawing on his hand for the entirety of class in acknowledgment of what Kohaku had advised him, but he was half tempted to grab a pen and write, ‘ _You can speak Japanese?_ ’ in reply. But he ignored his urges and instead rubbed his hand until the words were smudged off. 

It was about ten minutes later when he got another message. ‘ _I know you’re there, you know. You drew me flowers yesterday_.’ It was in larger letters, as if demanding Tsukasa’s attention. 

Tsukasa turned red and quickly rubbed the message off again, but his soulmate wasn’t deterred. 

‘ _Well, I’m gonna doodle on you until you reply_ ,’ was the next message. It was accompanied by their signature cat. 

‘Please don’t,’ he begged internally, fingers itching to reach for a pen just so his soulmate wouldn’t. 

Apparently soulmates were incapable of mental communication, because Tsukasa spent the next half hour distracted and in almost-agony from the unrelenting feeling of pins and needles in his arm. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d chosen to wear long sleeves that day. He was sure his arm would be silver all over with the way his soulmate was drawing on him, and there was no telling to how much his classmates would touch him once they realized that. 

It was a huge relief when the itching stopped. He looked down at his hand. ‘ _Maa-kun’s going to play with me,’_ he read _, ‘so I’ll talk to you later!_ ’ Again, it was signed off by a cat. 

He cupped his face in his hands and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘ _God_ ,’ he grieved, ‘ _I think my soulmate’s insane_.’ 

* * *

‘Listening’ to his soulmate talk was growing to become entertaining with time though. They liked to write about their day a lot, or muse on about some nonsensical thing that Tsukasa could barely follow. Still, it was a pleasant change from his otherwise mundane days, and Tsukasa enjoyed being a confidant to them. 

He quickly found out that his soulmate’s name was Sakuma Ritsu, and that he was two years older than Tsukasa. Ritsu’s best friend was called Maa-kun, - or Mao - and they enjoyed playing together at the park. (A small part of him wondered if he would be able to play with these people too, but he quickly chased the idea out of his mind.) 

  
If there was one thing Tsukasa really liked about Ritsu though, it had to be the fact that he seemed completely fine with just rambling about his day with no input from Tsukasa’s side. While he did make occasional references to Tsukasa’s silence, he didn’t show any signs of cutting off their communication. Tsukasa liked that; that feeling of mattering to someone. It was almost as if he was getting--

  
\--attached. 

* * *

Tsukasa gave up on trying not to draw on himself in class. He told himself that it wasn’t direct communication with his soulmate; it was just a matter of something he liked to do overlapping with his soulmate. 

Ritsu welcomed Tsukasa's drawings with wide arms and lots of stars. ‘ _You’re a seriously good artist_ ,’ he wrote. ‘ _You should teach me someday! My flowers look like slugs going through a solar eclipse_.’ Next to it was a silver circle vaguely resembling a flower. 

Tsukasa wondered how Ritsu could remain so optimistic about the possibility of them meeting (and what ‘slugs going through a solar eclipse’ even meant), but he smiled and carried on drawing. 

Sometimes they even drew together. It was always Ritsu taking the lead, etching swooping, grandiose lines over their skin while Tsukasa trailed behind, dutifully neatening things up to look slightly more presentable. It was chaotic at best: Ritsu’s wobbly penmanship didn’t mesh well with Tsukasa’s more sophisticated strokes, and seeing floral patterns partnered together with cats and occasionally planets or stars was admittedly quite strange, but Tsukasa liked it. He felt like it summed up their differences quite well, and whenever they managed to finish a drawing, Ritsu would top it off with one of his cat symbols. Tsukasa would smile at that, and he was always half tempted to draw a small flower next to it. But he decided that was crossing the line of ‘no communication’ a little too much, so he’d also always refrain. 

* * *

The first time Tsukasa saw Ritsu sad - properly sad - was near the end of his first year in middle school. 

‘ _Maa-kun’s going to a different high school than me_ ,’ the words read that night. They were suspiciously subdued. Tsukasa bit his lip. ‘ _I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again._ ’ 

Tsukasa wished he could offer the boy a hug and reassure him that yes, they’d definitely meet again, because he knew best just how much Mao meant to Ritsu. He even picked his pen up. He thought of the way Kohaku's face blanked whenever he brought up the topic of soulmates, and quickly set his pen down. 

Instead, he doodled all through class. He had a test coming up and Ritsu didn’t even reply, but he hoped he had managed to make him happy, if even just a little bit. 

* * *

High school only seemed to make Ritsu stranger. Tsukasa was worried about him maturing and deciding to detach himself from Tsukasa completely, but he needn’t have worried at all. Ritsu kept all his strange habits and strange doodles during his transition to high school, and Tsukasa was thankful for that. In fact, the only thing that seemed to drastically change about Ritsu were the hours in the day that he would talk. 

' _Everyone else at this idol school is weird and annoying ... oh well, at least I have you_.' 

Tsukasa had vaguely manage to translate this to something along the lines of, _‘I have no friends in high school except for you._ ’ He pursed his lips, wondering how someone who refused to talk to his soulmate could be considered a friend, but he gently coloured in a small, red flower to show he was there. 

* * *

Yumenosaki was hectic, that's for sure. 

Tsukasa had enrolled there after seeing one group in particular preform — Knights. They were really cool, and they seemed like something Ritsu would like, based off what he often talked about with his friend Mao being an idol and all. 

Although he didn't meet any of his seniors yet, he did talk to a few of his classmates in class 1-B. 

"Tenma-kun, do you talk to your soulmate?" 

Mitsuru's face brightened up as soon as the redhead had started up a conversation, "Yeah! Of course, everyday!! Though, they don't really talk to me during class since it's against the rules, especially now that it's summer and we don't have any long sleeves!" 

“You talk to each other in class?” Tsukasa asked, aghast. 

Mitsuru stuck his tongue out. “Don’t think I didn’t see you drawing all over your arm in math yesterday, Tsukasa-chan!" 

Tsukasa reddened. “That-- that’s different!” he protested. 

“How?” Mitsuru tilted his head in genuine confusion. 

Tsukasa sighed,“It just is.” Mitsuru opened his mouth to retaliate, but Tsukasa cut him off. “Do you think you’ll meet them one day?” Mitsuru simply blinked at him. Tsukasa blinked back. Why was he…? 

_Oh._

Tsukasa flinched back from his classmate, immediately backpedalling. “Sorry, was that too personal?” he blabbered. “That was my fault, I--” Mitsuru poked his arm, gently interrupting him. Tsukasa stared at him. 

“Doesn’t everyone think they’ll meet their soulmate one day?” he asked. 

Tsukasa smiled at that. It was more of a sad smile, and from the way Mitsuru’s brow furrowed, he seemed to notice. “Not my cousin.” 

Mitsuru tilted his head. “But do _you_ , Tsukasa-chan?” 

“I--” Tsukasa swallowed-- “I don’t know,” he said on an exhale. 

“Do you want to meet them?” 

“Obviously,” Tsukasa said. “I mean, they’re my soulmate. I can’t-- I can’t not…” he trailed off. 

Mitsuru smiled at him and sat back in his seat. “Then that’s good enough, isn’t it?” 

Tsukasa gave him a dubious look. “Just hoping for something that might not even happen?” 

“What’s wrong with that?” Mitsuru challenged. Tsukasa bit his lip, turning those words over in his head. Was it okay? Was it really okay to want the impossible? 

“My soulmate’s talked to me every day and I’ve never replied, not even once.” He sighed. “I’m a horrible person,” he finished in a hoarse voice. 

Mitsuru gazed at him thoughtfully. “Do you think they’ll forgive you, Tsukasa-chan?” 

Tsukasa laughed dryly. “They shouldn’t, but they probably would. I don’t think they even hold it against me as it is.” 

“Then talk to them,” Mitsuru urged. 

“And say what?” Tsukasa asked. “‘Oh hello, sorry I’ve been ignoring you for seven years’?” 

“Yeah,” Mitsuru said without skipping a beat. 

* * *

‘ _Hello_ ,’ Tsukasa wrote on his arm once he was back home. He felt like he was going to throw up. 

The reply was instantaneous. _‘!!!!’_ followed by an excited, ‘ _Holy shit!_ ’ and then an, ‘ _Oh my god! You can talk?!_ ’ Tsukasa didn’t know whether that was a good ‘oh my god’ or a bad one, but he assumed it was the latter. 

‘ _Um_ ,’ Tsukasa wrote next, and instantly cringed. His hands were shaking. This was going even worse than he had imagined. ‘ _I’m so, so sorry for not talking to you for so long.’_

The next reply took a little longer to come. Tsukasa tapped his pen anxiously against his desk as he waited, scenario after scenario of what could possibly go wrong playing in his head. He jumped when he felt Ritsu begin to write, and narrowly missed banging his knee against the desk. ‘ _What was all of that about?’_

Tsukasa scrutinised the writing. He couldn’t tell what Ritsu was feeling, but he hoped it wasn’t anything similar to hatred. ‘ _It’s a long story, but my cousin didn’t really want me talking to you.’_

‘ _Oh_ ,’ was the reply, ‘ _that sucks_.’ A few moments later, he received another message. ‘ _Do they not like me or something?’_

Tsukasa chewed his lip anxiously. He didn’t seem that angry, at least, but it didn't help satiate the nauseous feeling building up in his stomach. ‘ _No, he just doesn’t like soulmates in general. It’s his way of trying to look out for me_ ,’ he added. 

‘ _Oh_.’ There was a small pause after this, and then the itching feeling on Tsukasa ’s arm started up again. ‘ _I don’t really know what to say now.’_

‘ _Don’t worry too much about it. You can just talk about your day like usual_ ,’ Tsukasa wrote. He immediately received an onslaught of exclamation marks on his wrist. 

‘ _Seriously?!_ ’ Ritsu wrote. ‘ _My soulmate just wrote to me for the first time, and you want me to talk about my day?! I want to know about YOU.’_ The word ‘you’ was underlined several times. Tsukasa gritted his teeth, fingers quivering, before writing another reply. 

‘ _My name’s Suou Tsukasa,_ ' he wrote. He didn’t know what else to say. 

‘ _Cool_ ,’ was the reply, followed by something that vaguely resembled a thumbs up. ‘ _That’s it?’_

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Tsukasa replied. He paused, then wrote, ‘ _Aren’t you angry at me?_ ’ 

' _No_ ,’ was the immediate answer. 

* * *

It was in the middle of math when Tsukasa suddenly found silver ink stains exploded all over his fingers. 

“Are you serious,” he groaned under his breath, dropping his spoiled pen and staring at his hands in dismay. 

“You may go to the restroom,” the teacher said, his mouth twitching into a faint smile. 

Tsukasa apologized for disrupting the lesson and stumbled out of the room with his face on fire, cursing Ritsu and his clumsiness as he went. He ran up the stairs, turned the corner, and came face to face with another student. 

Tsukasa squeaked in surprise and jerked his hands backwards, not wanting to ruin the boy's uniform. The boy stared at him with a strange look on his face, and Tsukasa averted his eyes. "Sorry,” he apologized, and made to move past him. 

“Wait...” The boy moved his hand out to touch him, then hesitated and pulled it back. Tsukasa paused in surprise and turned back to the other. 

“Is something wr…” he trailed off. His breath hitched, and he could physically feel the colour draining from her face. 

The other was only slightly taller than him, and even without Yumenosaki's signature tie around his neck, Tsukasa could surely tell that he was older. 

The reason why he hadn’t touched him was because he also had large, unmistakeable ink stains splattered over his hands. 

“Er,” Sakuma Ritsu began haltingly, “are you Suou Tsukasa?”


End file.
